If you saw Stevie Wonder at Live 8, hammering out 'Higher Ground' and 'Superstition' on a battered old Clavinet D6 and Boss AW-2 Auto Wah pedal, you'll know that we have a lot to thank Hohner for. The company was founded in 1857 and was the first to sell harmonicas. They made the harmonica Abraham Lincoln used to carry around, and gave Wally Schirra the tiny one he played on the Gemini IV spacecraft in 1965. But I'd never heard of Hohner's Guitaret. It was invented by Ernst Zacharias, who went on to develop the Pianet and Clavinet. The only English description I can find is this: "It's a kind of reed autoharp. It had buttons to select chords and a lever to activate the plectrum mechanism, and was intended to replace the rhythm guitar in dance bands" (via). It plugs into a guitar amp, and may sound a bit like an electric thumb piano. Now, one has turned up on German eBay item #7335307871. It comes in the original box, looks like it's in good nick, ships worldwide, accepts Paypal and is currently only €20. If you buy it, do let me know what it's like... UPDATE: Not THAT rare, perhaps: item #7337947775 is another one!

Posted by Tom Whitwell.

Comments:

Is that the first harmonica? Really strange... ^^ LOL... Oh, nice blog, by the way ^^

Clavinet, Cembalet, Pianet, Guitaret - what else? Vionet? Euphoninet? What a cool company Hohner turns out to be. I love that they dared to invent and market new instruments but the Guitaret really takes the biscuit. I want one! And I want a bass Guitaret. This thing just looks so right - though it needs a bit of mother of pearl plastic to really set it off. Actually, this layout of chord buttons and 'plectrum' bar would also be a cool format for a midi controller - plugged into a laptop, of course...

Tom wrote: "Dude, if you want to set up your own blog, write it every night after work and get paid nothing, feel free. Just don't come reading my stuff with that attitude."

Yes! That made my day. I'm a daily reader of musicthing, and the only thing that frustrates me about this blog are the amount of jerkwad comments (usually by Anonymous posters) to your rad posts.

I suppose it comes with the territory, but it's still bothersome.

Anyway, not to get too offtopic with this post, I'll also throw in that I need a hohner guitaret. .. possibly play it with my teeth .. and light it on fire at the end of a performance .. but then put it out quickly before it is too damaged ..

With the thumb one swipes over the surface of the housing across the tops of the 'reeds' that stick out just slightly. The 'button' in the neck of the instrument is a damper/sustain. Inside it's all very simple.. just the matrix of 'reeds' with windings of a coil around them (like a stretched electro-magnetic guitar pick-up!)- the coil is directly connected to the three pin output plug, hence the need of an amplifier. the dampler pushes a grid with small blocks of felt against/away from each 'reed'am on the road at the moment; otherwise could have sent a view of the inside of mine.it's a wonderfull hilariously simple instrument !

I came across your page by chance surfing the web for the hohner guitaret. at the moment I am working on a soundtrack for a friend's upcoming feature film and used a lot of guitaret on one track. you can check it out at:www.homeofriviera.com/puregold.mp3